


Love in A Photograph

by that_1_incident



Category: Eyewitness (US TV)
Genre: Adolescent Sexuality, Angst, Awkward Conversations, Bittersweet, Canon Compliant, Closeted Character, Episode: s01e05 The Lilies, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, Mother-Son Relationship, SHAKE IT LIKE A POLAROID PICTURE a.k.a. things I would've named this fic if it weren't so heavy, Secret Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-15
Updated: 2016-11-15
Packaged: 2018-08-31 04:07:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8563414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/that_1_incident/pseuds/that_1_incident
Summary: Philip's been here before. Like, not literally here, not in a shed filled with junk on the Waldenbeck property, but watching someone he cares about frantically sift through stuff to sell for drug money? Yeah, he's been here too many times to count. (Based on the Philip/Lukas interactions in "Eyewitness" 1x05.)





	

**Author's Note:**

> Title is a lyric from Ed Sheeran's "Photograph."
> 
> See also: [At Night, Alone](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8400745) and [Burning One Hell of A Something](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8430406).

Philip's been here before. Like, not literally here, not in a shed filled with junk on the Waldenbeck property, but watching someone he cares about frantically sift through stuff to sell for drug money? Yeah, he's been here too many times to count. 

Lukas asks if Helen and Gabe ever leave cash lying around the house, and Philip honestly feels as if he's back in Queens for a second, listening to his mom plead with him to go visit the neighbors - just to drop by, to say hey, to see if they left any cash out in the open, any drugs, you know, whatever. He's been too old for that tactic for a while now, but when he was ten, it worked like a dream.

"I'm not stealing from them," Philip says firmly, and he's talking about Gabe and Helen and the people from the old neighborhood all at once. "They're good people." 

When Lukas nods, it's as if the motion drains all the fight from his body. He casts his eyes listlessly around the cluttered space, and Philip thinks he might be about to cry. 

"Well, will you just… Will you please at least help me find something I can sell before my dad gets home?" 

There's abject fear in Lukas' eyes, like he can't live another minute inside his own skin. Philip knows pills won't fix anything, but at the end of the day, it's Lukas - it's _Lukas_ , and he can't say no.

"OK," he acquiesces softly, and Lukas gives him a wordless nod before trudging over to another pile of odds and ends. 

"Try in there."

Philip does as instructed, delves into a box and rummages until Lukas stills beside him. When he looks up, Lukas has a photograph in his hands. 

"Who's that?"

"My mom." Lukas holds up the photo, and there's an expression on his face that Philip's never seen before. 

Philip resists the urge to say she's beautiful (she is - she looks like Lukas) and asks instead, "What was she like?"

"She died when I was six," Lukas explains, his voice cracking. He refuses to meet Philip's gaze. "I don't really remember."

"I'm sorry," Philip says carefully, watching Lukas gently put the photo back down.

"But I remember she smelled good," Lukas admits. 

He actually looks at Philip this time, and Philip offers him a small smile.

"My mom smells like cigarettes," he says ruefully.

Lukas crosses behind him, paws at another box of crap. 

"Must be nice." 

"What?" 

"Having a mom."

"Well, I'm not really one to talk about that right now, am I?" Philip tries his best to keep the edge out of his voice. 

"'Least you got one," Lukas says resignedly, and yeah - yeah, Lukas has a point there. He wins, if you can call it that. Lukas wins because he loses. 

\--

So an old watch Lukas found - the one Philip figured was worthless - will apparently sell for like four hundred bucks according to this guy who owns one of the antique shops in town. (Philip doesn't understand how Tivoli can have five antique shops but no bodegas or 7-Elevens. More proof he's not in Kansas anymore.) Lukas is jubilant; he can pick up the money once the watch is authenticated, but in the meantime, he's clutching a paper bag and grinning like the Cheshire Cat.

Philip tilts his head. "What's in the bag?"

It's the first time Philip's seen the other boy smile since the night Lukas tried to teach him how to ride. ( _This is a motorcycle_ , he'd begun seriously, but by the last syllable, Philip could detect the barely repressed laughter in his voice. They'd nudged each other playfully and jostled their elbows, which had led to secret, fleeting hand-holding and, emboldened by the darkness, the wisp of a stolen kiss.)

Back in the stark light of day, Lukas holds the bag's contents triumphantly aloft. 

"Well, at first, I thought it was some kinda _Star Wars_ spaceship," Lukas begins, and Philip feels a smile tugging at his lips, "but it's actually a camera."

"It's a Polaroid!" 

Philip laughs fondly at Lukas' cluelessness, hands his bottle of soda to the other boy, and carefully takes the camera. 

"Whoa," is all he can say as he revels in the clunkiness of what was considered cutting-edge technology in decades past, turning it over in his hands. It's definitely older than him, older than both of them, and Lukas _bought_ it for him, and Philip wants to be cool about that but there's a stubborn warmth inside his chest that refuses to be ignored.

"You like to take pictures, right?" Lukas asks almost shyly, and Philip gives him a long look.

"Yeah, I do," he says finally, and Lukas' eyes sparkle, so he knows he must sound pleased. 

"You think it works?"

"Yeah, it works; it just needs some film." 

Philip lifts it to his eyes anyway and Lukas poses reflexively, the mouth of the soda bottle pressed against his lips. When they'd shared that beer back at the cabin before everything went wrong and right all in the same night, Philip remembers how Lukas had wiped the top of the bottle with his sleeve, cleansing it of Philip's saliva. Today he doesn't do that, just takes a swig and shoots Philip a smile. Philip doesn't need film to commit the image to memory forever. 

\-- 

So Philip's mom takes a cab up to Helen and Gabe's house, which must have been _unholy_ expensive, but Gabe pays the fare without a fuss and he and Helen let Philip show Anne around town even though she's not supposed to talk to him on the phone, let alone visit him. He's just about to take her to the bakery that used to be a church when he catches sight of Lukas (because of _course_ he does), and his mom figures out who Lukas is in like two point four seconds (because of _course_ she would). Philip at least manages to get her to hang back for a few moments while he approaches the bench where Lukas is sitting. 

"Is that your mom?"

"Yeah."

Lukas lowers his voice. "Can you bum me some drugs off her?"

" _No_ ," Philip says firmly, and then his mom is right there, oblivious to what she's interrupting. It's kind of surreal how his two worlds are colliding like this - not _bad_ -surreal, just… weird. 

"Hey, Lukas," Anne says warmly, and Philip gets that she has issues - that she's _troubled_ , as the social worker phrased it - but he's so, so grateful for how accepting she's been of him, of them, of this. 

"Hi," Lukas responds flatly, looking about as uncomfortable as Philip's ever seen him, which is saying a lot. 

Philip touches his thigh for a second, slides over on the bench so their legs are pressed against each other.

"It's cool - she knows about us," he murmurs reassuringly.

Lukas relaxes precisely zero percent. 

"Philip says that you compete in…" Anne trails off, glancing to Philip for guidance. "What is it again?" 

"Motocross, Mom." 

"Motocross, yes! It must be fun riding up here - all this space," she says encouragingly, but Lukas just seems lost. 

Philip wants to reach out and hold his hand, but it's daylight and they're in public and Lukas _literally_ just met his _mom_ , so he watches his fingertips twitch helplessly and digs his palm into his own knee as the silence drags on.

"Liking Philip…" Lukas begins finally, but trails off. His voice is scratchy, like he's dragging the words out from deep inside himself and they're not coming easily. "Out here… the way I do… it's hard."

Anne touches Lukas' shoulder. "I know," she tells him softly, then kisses him on the cheek. "It will get easier, I promise." 

She tousles the hair by his neck, and when Lukas turns to Philip, he looks like he doesn't know what to do with any of this - with the special brand of comfort that only a mom can offer, with Anne's acceptance of… of whatever it is that he and Philip share. 

He mumbles "Yeah, I'll - I'll see ya…" followed by some excuse about hunting and his dad, and then he's standing up, and then he's leaving, and then he's looking over his shoulder to meet Philip's eyes. 

\--

"Lukas doesn't have a mom" is the first thing Philip says once Lukas is out of earshot, and he's not quite sure why.

"He seems like a really sweet kid," Anne tells him sincerely. 

The two of them watch Lukas slouch off into the distance, the weight of the world on his shoulders, Philip's soda bottle still in his hand, before Philip turns back to his mother.

"Mom, I really want you to go to rehab."

Although her deep brown eyes are colored differently from Lukas' cool gray, they're tinged with a familiar fear. 

"...Will you take me?" she asks after a short pause. 

"I will, but you really gotta do it this time," Philip insists, and this time he's not just asking for himself, he's asking for Lukas, too. 

Because - OK, maybe this is stupid, but someday… someday in some parallel universe where things actually go right, maybe he and Lukas can really be together, and his mom can really get clean. Maybe she can even be part of _both_ of their lives - like, tiptoe into the void left by Lukas' mom's death and temper Mr. Waldenbeck's clipped tones and rough edges with her softness and kind spirit, all the parts that get blunted when she's high, all the parts that Philip loves the most. 

"I promise," she responds, and Philip's heart twists with the intensity of how much he wants this.


End file.
